Puck Yeah! Wolfgang Puck Talks Trends

No matter where you look, there’s Wolfgang Puck. Announcing plans to open his first restaurant in New York City, doing a cooking demonstration on a morning show, making a pitch on QVC for his latest product, guesting on The Simpsons, gracing a slew of cookbooks at Barnes & Noble, catering the Academy Awards Governors Ball, beaming back at you from products galore in the grocery store, making an appearance at one of his many restaurants around the world, including The Source in Washington, D.C., Cut in Las Vegas, or Chinois in Los Angeles. The man is everywhere.

This omnipresence is even more amazing given the fact that the Austrian-born toque has been headlining the celebrity chef circuit for three and a half decades – before that circuit even existed. In fact, he helped create it. Before Top Chef and the Food Network – both of which he later appeared on – Puck became a household name by becoming the forward-thinking face of California cuisine by debuting his now-iconic Spago on the Sunset Strip in 1982. Like Puck himself, it’s still going strong, though it’s now located in Beverly Hills, and there are spinoffs in Los Vegas, Maui, Singapore, Istanbul, and Avon, Colorado. That dazzling debut earned him a frenzied fan base, which helped launch a career as a restaurateur, television personality, cookbook author, and the face of dozens of products.

Over the course of more than 30 years in the spotlight, Puck has never been short of opinions. He’s always happy to share them in his practically trademarked Austrian accent. Here Wolfgang Puck talks trends, sharing his biggest likes and dislikes from over the course of his career.

LIKES

Spice is Nice
“I enjoy spicier food than I used to. Whenever I go to an Italian restaurant, the first thing I ask for is crushed red pepper.”

Not-too-sweet Sweets
“I love dark chocolate with minimum 70 percent cocoa. It can have a filling, but it can’t be too sweet. I don’t like sweet for sweet. I like sweet with flavor. If it’s overly sweet, you can’t taste anything. That’s why milk chocolate doesn’t taste like chocolate. So I always tell our pastry chefs that if you have caramel and salt, it’s better than caramel by itself.”

Canned Vegetables
“I grew up on a farm, so farm-to-table is all I know. It’s not something someone invented. In the mid-Eighties, the Hotel Bel-Air asked me to cook a dinner, so I went to the farms outside Los Angeles for vegetables. Afterward, some of the guests sent the president of the hotel a complaint letter saying, ‘How disgusting that Hotel Bel-Air would use food coloring in its vegetables.’ I wondered what the heck they were talking about, so I went to the hotel’s chef to find out what they normally served. It was all canned, imported vegetables. Not very colorful at all. Stockton, California, is one of the biggest asparagus regions in the world, yet they were using canned asparagus.”

Your Parents’ Restaurant Food
“Even though they were all very popular, I didn’t have veal chops, filet mignon, or New York strip steak on my menu at Spago when we opened. I wanted to go 100 percent against. Instead, we offered chicken, pigeon, squab, lamb, fish, and quail. Also, I made pizza. People said, ‘Oh, a chef who trained in the best restaurants is making pizza? That’s not right.’ But we made them in our own style by using duck sausage, Santa Barbara shrimp, and smoked salmon. And it paid off.”

Overstated Formality
“I didn’t want my waiters at Spago in tuxedos. I had them wear black pants, a nice shirt, and an apron with the restaurant’s logo. I put one boule of bread on the table instead of serving it fancy. You could just rip a piece off. If you wanted butter, you had to ask for it. To this day, people still want high-quality products. White truffles and lobster are more popular than ever. But they want it in an informal way. They don’t want it to be fancy with a waiter in a tuxedo telling them the wine they chose doesn’t go well with their dish. I say, ‘Screw you. I drink what I want.’ Young people don’t want to be lectured when they go to a restaurant.”

TV Stardom
“There are very few chefs – like Thomas Keller – who don’t do TV and are famous. But the most talented chefs didn’t do a lot of TV. Bobby Flay, Emeril, and Tom Colicchio are very good chefs, but they’re not at the top level and their restaurants were never at the top level. I did a show for Food Network and some other things, but I didn’t feel the need to keep doing it. I could do Good Morning America once a month if I wanted to, but I don’t. I’ve been asked to do Dancing With the Stars, but I can’t dance.”

California “Champagne”
“A company came to me in the Eighties and said, ‘We will pay you $250,000 a year for three years if you endorse our Champagne.’ That was a lot of money back then. My rent for the restaurant was $3,500 a month. However, they didn’t say the name of the product. It turns out it was André, a sweet, $3-a-bottle sparkling wine that was not Champagne. I told them no and that all the money in the world wouldn’t do me any good if I endorsed it.”

How many of Wolfgang Puck’s famous restaurants have you visited? Share your puckish dining experiences here or over on Facebook,

I think Wolfgang Puck is by far one of the top 4 or 5 chefs in the country. We have been huge fans of his since we moved to California over 40 years ago. He is always creating new flavor combinations and is a skilled teacher. We love watching his shows and demonstrations of his signature kitchen tools and appliances. His restaurants are works of art and his employees are well trained.
Every restaurant and recipe is a winner!

Very interesting – what Mr. Puck has to say is “oh so true” – in every sense of his words. And I certainly agree – Emerill is quite likable and entertaining, but no “master chef”. I lived in Manhattan when Bobby Flay opened his restaurant there. VERY OVERPRICED and mediocre food.

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Caroline Potter is the Chief Dining Officer for OpenTable, Inc. She’s a dining trend-spotter and an OpenTable VIP, who dines out more than she eats in and has accrued more than 10,000 Dining Rewards points. Caroline started working in restaurants as a teen and she's since tackled every front-of-the-house job, from bartender and hostess to runner and server. She trained as a chef at Manhattan’s prestigious French Culinary Institute, cooking at L’Ecole. In addition to her role at OpenTable, she has written about food from farm to table for New York City’s famed Greenmarket and Edible Brooklyn and Edible East End magazines. Caroline is also a Certified Master Gardener.